Air New Zealand creates epic flight safety film

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The four-and-a-half-minute-long video stars four members of the LOTR team—Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins), Sir Peter Jackson (director of all six LOTR movies), Sylvester McCoy (Radagast), and Dean O’Gorman (Fili the Dwarf).

Wizards and hobbits and orcs—oh my! Paying homage to the third and final Hobbit film, Air New Zealand, an airline company, released a Middle Earth-themed safety video appropriately titled “The Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made.”

Filled with elves, orcs, dwarves, wizards and hobbits delivering airline safety information, the video lives up to all expectations hinted at in the title.

It is entertaining and filled with scenes that all “Lord of the Rings” fans will adore, all the while managing to inform passengers of all necessary safety information from properly fastening seat belts to safely evacuating the plane in the case of an emergency.

The four-and-a-half-minute-long video stars four members of the LOTR team—Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins), Sir Peter Jackson (director of all six LOTR movies), Sylvester McCoy (Radagast), and Dean O’Gorman (Fili the Dwarf).

Wood is reprising his role as Frodo Baggins in the third and final Hobbit film, “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies,” which is set to be released Dec. 17.

Jackson said he was excited to film the airline safety video.

“Air New Zealand has created yet another fantastic video to celebrate The Hobbit films. I had a lot of fun on the set with Taika and the team and look forward to seeing the video on board,” he said.

Air New Zealand has always helped promote the fantasy franchise. This is not the first Middle Earth-themed safety video that the airline has debuted, and the airline owns two LOTR-themed 777 airplanes.

“The Lord of the Rings” has proved to be an incredibly successful and incomparable film franchise since the very first movie, “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” was released in 2001.

Since then, New Zealand tourism has seen a 50 percent increase in arrivals, according to Gregg Anderson, the general manager of Western long haul markets for Tourism New Zealand.

The airline is not the only establishment excited for the final movie release—LOTR is being incorporated more and more into everyday life for people all around New Zealand: Kiwi’s can now purchase stamps with the faces of characters from the movies; visitors are admitted into the country with a “Welcome to Middle Earth” stamp in their passports; news-watchers received a pleasant surprise when one weather report forecast was delivered entirely in Elvish.

So much of New Zealand’s natural beauty was captured in the LOTR movies, and people want to see that beauty for themselves. Fans want to make the trek out to Hobbiton (a.k.a. Matamata), a real town where real doors are in real holes in the ground, and Lothlorien (a.k.a. the Gardens of Fernside Lodge) among other places.

With so many on-board passengers being LOTR fans, it makes sense that Air New Zealand continuously attempts to include aspects of the beloved fantasy franchise in their flights and planes.